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“That was huge,” he said. “Over the years, in the nine years I’ve been here, we’ve utilized retirements multiple times to make budget adjustments. Whether people recognize it or not I don’t know.”

Many times, the district has not replaced a teacher who retired or hired a newer teacher who had a lower salary.

“In the last two years, quite frankly, we’ve been able to live off the retirements,” Chiodo said.”

So, the legislature says that if they remove tenure, they won’t use teacher salary as lay-off deciders, huh? I’m not a teacher, and don’t know one, but that sounds pretty much like a budget decision based on salary/experience to me.

Katherine,
Teacher retirement is not the same as teacher layoff. Retirement is voluntary and layoffs are not. What Ms. Erickson is trying to inform us about is the fact that in prior years the retirement of higher salaried teachers has reduced the overall payroll (which is by the way the district’s largest expense) whereas this year the absence of voluntary retirements is forcing the district to shuffle payroll expenses through layoffs of lower salaried newer teachers. Some of this cost cutting is to allow for the hiring of a new assistant principal at Century school.
One question I would wonder concerns the six kindergarten classes going into first grade next year. Are you going to increase class size or are you planning on having six first grades? Increasing class size at the first grade level is (in the opinion of most all experienced educators) a major detriment to the students in this vital and formidable time frame. Not increasing classs size should be the highest priority in buget concerns, more so than special programs and additonal administration.